Hero
by redtrouble
Summary: [Spoilers if you haven't finished Heavensward!] The Warrior of Light takes revenge for the death of her friend Haurchefant.
1. Requiem

**Author's Note:** I couldn't let it stand, the lame way this unfolded in the game. I had to fix it - fix the fight with Zephirin to one of proper revenge! I realize that pieces of this story are slightly different than actual events, but it's my personal headcanon so...please enjoy. :P Also, in this story, the Warrior of Light is a female Seeker of the Sun Mi'quote with fair skin, black hair with red highlights, and gray eyes. I don't describe her so...yah. Her name, S'liya, is pronounced soo-LEE-yuh. Thank you for reading!

* * *

S'liya Lhea's footsteps echoed in the cathedral as she raced across the marble floor in pursuit of Ser Charibert. She took the stairs two by two and leapt up the last three when she neared the top. The two giant, wooden double doors were swinging freely. She slammed them open just in time to see the defeated knight falling in step with Archbishop Thordan VII, the pair making their way down the long boarding lane where an airship was just arriving to bear them away from the Vault.

"Stop!" she roared, and Charibert glanced back, anger spliced with fear flashing across his face. The Archbishop neither stopped nor looked back.

A chorus of footsteps rushing up behind her caused her ears to twitch—chainmail, plate armor, four pairs of feet but only one set limping. Then suddenly Haurchefant appeared at her side, Estinien and Lucia flanked her, and a wounded Ser Aymeric limped past.

"Father, please!" he cried. Her cat eyes quickly scanned him for any serious injury before she caught Haurchefant's gaze.

"We were not too late, my friend," he assured her with a small smile.

"Why must you do this, Father?" Aymeric shouted, hobbling a few paces down the walkway, clutching tightly to his arm. The Archbishop suddenly stopped, though he did not turn around. Seeing he had his attention, Aymeric continued to beseech his father. _An opening,_ S'liya realized.

She and Haurchefant locked eyes, thoughts in sync, and nodded in unison. As the Archbishop's voice rose above the din of the wind to respond to his son's plea, they broke into a sprint down the lane. As her Elezen comrade locked his shield before him and drew his sword, she ripped one of her throwing daggers from her loaded belt, jumped into an aerial spin, and launched the kunai. It found purchase in the Archbishop's shoulder and he fell forward to one knee. Charibert lunged to aid him.

"Nice throw!" Haurchefant's praise came on the whipping wind. She grinned and prepared another dagger. Truthfully, she had been aiming for his spine, but calculating wind speed on the fly was never her strong point. The next one wouldn't miss, she would be sure of it. "Liya!" Haurchefant shrieked. "Look out!"

Before she could react, he slammed into her. She spun mid-slide on the marble, bringing her daggers defensively to bear, when she saw a bolt of light connect with Haurchefant's shield with a loud crack. Her eyes went wide, fear slamming into her chest and taking a sickening hold of her heart pulsating so quickly that she thought it might burst.

"Don't!" she screamed, propelling herself forward so suddenly that her feet slipped once on the marble. There was no way his shield would hold it. She ran two paces when she heard the snap. "No!"

The bolt of light broke through the shield and speared Haurchefant through his gut, sticking fast into the ground like a glittering pike. And then it dispersed in a sparkling flash. S'liya reached out and caught Haurchefant as he fell back and she collapsed onto her knees.

"No!" she cried. Her hands flew to his stomach to cover the wound but the gaping hole gushing blood was too large. Lucia crashed down on his opposite side and Estinien knelt beside her. "Help me get his armor off!" Her fingers slick with blood struggled with the buckles strapping his chainmail to his chest. Neither moved a muscle. " _Help me!_ " she commanded them, and they quickly worked the heavy mail off as Aymeric hobbled up to them. "I need a healer!"

The airship mid-flight caught her eye and she glanced up in time to see Ser Zephirin leap from his lofty position onto the airship's main deck. He smiled at her and she knew, knew he had thrown it, that he had tried to kill her but failed and yet still was satisfied. Rage and hatred so raw boiled beneath her skin, distracted only by Haurchefant's cries of pain as they peeled the mail away from his wound and over his head.

"Healer!" she shouted. "Get a healer! Now!"

Beneath the armor, he wore a thin shift. S'liya immediately removed her coat and covered his chest then ripped off one of the scarves tied around her waist, bundled it, and pressed it into the wound. Within moments, it was sopped with blood. Lucia gingerly lifted Haurchefant's head so that he could breathe easier.

"You," Haurchefant rasped, blood smeared on his lips. He struggled to look at her, eyes lolling in his head. "You are unharmed…" The corners of his mouth twitched upward as he tried to smile. "I'm…glad…"

"Grey," she whispered, using the nickname she had given him when they had met; she'd told him his name was too hard to pronounce and used his last name, Greystone, as inspiration. "Did you forget what I told you?"

"I didn't…forget. Forgive me—" he coughed, blood spattering his chin "—but I could not bear the thought of…of…"

" _Heal him_! Someone!" Her gaze flew wildly from Lucia to Estinien to Aymeric. " _Do something!_ "

"Could not…bear the thought…"

"Hydaelyn…" she whispered desperately. "I need you, Hydaelyn." She winced as she pressed the sopping scarf to his wound and blood gushed between her fingers. "Hydaelyn, help me!"

Haurchefant managed to lift his arm, trying to reach her. She grasped his hand in both of hers, drew it to her chest. She felt droplets spatter her fingers and realized her face was wet with tears.

"Oh, do not look at me so…" he mumbled, still trying to hold his smile. "A smile…better suits…a hero…"

A sob forced its way past the lump in her throat. "Is that why you're smiling, my friend?" Her voice was shaking. His brows lifted in surprise. She nodded in affirmation and forced herself to smile for him. "You saved me. Over and over again." She watched tears leak out of his eyes and mingle with the blood on his cheeks. "You're _my_ hero, Grey." He smiled one last time, a peaceful smile, and the light left his eyes. His body slumped in Lucia's arms. "Grey?" she whimpered. "Grey!"

She squeezed the hand she held and leaned into him, looking desperately for some sign of life. Then someone was touching her, there were hands on her shoulders, trying to pull her away. She jerked her arm with such force that the person was thrown back.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed.

This was not how it was supposed to be. Not him. Not Haurchefant. When Limsa Lominsa and Gridania had turned their backs on her, he had welcomed her with open arms. When Ul'dah hunted her, he had sworn to protect her. When despair and hopelessness had knocked her into the snow, it was his words of hope that had pulled her back onto her feet. He had fought for her, fought with her, brave and strong and never false. He had never forsaken her, not once—not in his words, his actions, or his faith. Never!

Still holding his hand tightly to her chin, she folded over onto his chest, the cool leather of her coat pressed against her cheek. She stared up at his silver hair matted with blood, his porcelain pale skin, the smile frozen on his lips.

She was suddenly acutely aware of an agonizing pain in her chest so oppressive that she couldn't breathe. Her vision was instantly blurry, eyes burning. She might've been screaming.

 _They call you a hero,_ _but the only saving you do is with steel._ Teledji Adeledji's words had rung hollow back then, words spoken after watching what she believed was Nanamo ul Namo choke to death. She had been sorry, of course, had been horrified and sad, but the Sultana's life and death, her motivation and ambition—it was beyond S'liya's realm of operation. Her death was regrettable, but it was not S'liya's responsibility. _Killing is your only talent,_ he had hissed. Moenbryda's sacrifice was noble and pure, given to defeat an Ascian. She had been at peace with her choice. It was a life given willingly, not taken forcibly. And even though she mourned her death, Moenbryda had been Minfillia's friend, Urianger's friend…not S'liya's. _If you can't kill, what use are you?_

What use was she?

S'liya wailed into his neck, clung to his head and silver hair, to his shift. She cursed Hydaelyn for abandoning her. She cursed the Scions who had called upon her countless times but could not be there in the one moment she had need of them. She cursed herself a murderer, because her only talent was killing. And Haurchefant was dead.


	2. Rage

The sobs of Edmont de Fortemps still rang between her ears, a suitable dirge to compliment Ser Aymeric's situation report. The words buzzed around in her head but they were not the words she wanted to hear. The rights, the wrongs, the past and present, the betrayals—they didn't matter. She was sick of hearing about it. Yes, Ishgard betrayed the dragons. Yes, hierarchal restructuring was due. Yes, the Archbishop had turned on them. She had heard it a thousand times, had witnessed it all herself. She wanted to scream, _Stop talking!_ There had been enough talk, now it was time for action.

And then he said the words she had been waiting to hear: will the Scions stand with me?

"I will have Zephirin's heart for what he's done," she growled, drawing every gaze in the room.

"Yes," Aymeric nodded, sadness in his eyes, "you and Lord Haurchefant were close." He looked at her so gently that she wanted to hit him, to fight this tenderness, this empathy that tried to weaken her. If he had hurt her, she would have felt safer, stronger. "I understand you're angry—"

She slammed her palms onto his desk. "I'm beyond angry!" she roared.

Aymeric was the only one who did not flinch in surprise. "I promise you," he said steadily, "I will not stand in your way. The Archbishop and the Heavens' Ward must answer for their crimes." The conversation ended quickly after that. When Estinien and Alphinaud had gone, she turned to leave but he caught her arm. "Please wait."

"Don't." She looked back at him. "I need this rage. It's the only thing keeping me together. Don't take that from me."

"I fear I couldn't if I tried," he replied regretfully. But she knew he might; there was a chance he had that power. She had felt it when they had first met and in the operations that followed—his mystifying influence to make her want to follow him, fight for him. When he had run to meet her the day the gates of Ishgard opened for Eorzea's three refugees, she had seen in his eyes that great power he held, power that would probably save her.

She couldn't let him save her from this.

"And will killing Ser Zephirin end this pain?" he asked. "Will it make everything right?"

"Killing Zephirin…" She paused, imagined leaping onto him, burying her daggers like fangs into his collarbone. "Will change nothing. Killing him will probably make me feel worse, make me feel emptier. But I'm still going to do it."

"You and Lord Haurchefant, were you—" He hesitated. "How close—" She turned to face him, saw the shame in his eyes that refused to meet hers. "Was he—"

"My friend," she said firmly. He finally looked at her. "He never once asked me for anything. Not one thing. I never did anything to prove to him I was—that I was…" A hero. "He never smiled at me with good intentions while he used me, used my reputation, used my abilities for idealism, for some greater good! He did? Not once. Everyone else, but not him!" She jabbed the air with her index finger to emphasize her point, pacing across the office in anxious and anguished rage. "He welcomed me when I had nowhere else to go, raised his shield in my defense—" his broken shield "—when Eorzea turned its back on its fallen 'hero', begged his father to take us in and is the only reason Ishgard opened its gates to us! He saw a hero from day one but never asked me for help, only promised his own." His lifeless eyes, the blood that stained his lips and hair, the hole in his gut—she couldn't stop seeing them. "Where would I be without him? And now he's…" His eyes, his lifeless eyes, his bloody smile, his silver hair matted with red. "Now he's…"

"S'liya." Her name on his lips was like a blast of cold air. She sucked in a breath and went very still. His gaze held her, steadied her. "Your friendship meant as much to him as his did to you. That he was taken from us is unforgivable, but to die for your cause—no, for your _life_ — _that_ is a death he desired."

"But was not required!" she groaned, fresh tears spilling from her eyes ringed with red, raw flesh. "He shouldn't have—not for me. For you, for his father, but not me."

"What is it that you said to him?"

"What?"

"What was it that he was supposed to remember? What did you tell him?"

Her jaw clenched. "I told him that I could never die."

Aymeric did not laugh or smile. He nodded once. When he finally spoke, he did so with absolute clarity and strength, resolve shining in his eyes. "When you find something worth dying for, sometimes you find yourself privileged to do so." He closed the distance between them. "And while remembering well your words, should the need arise, I, too, will stand in front of any death aimed at you."

S'liya swallowed the lump in her throat but found she could not speak.


	3. Reforged

_He would not have told you,_ Edmont de Fortemps' words replayed endlessly in her mind as she made her way to the airship landing, _but when Haurchefant begged me to accept you into our household, he described you as "hope incarnate"._ The blue mast of the Enterprise came into view, and scattered along the end of the boarding ramp were her allies, friends, comrades. _At the time, I assumed he was waxing lyrical, as was his wont._ Y'shtola, Alphinaud, and Tataru stood together, chatting animatedly. _But I have come to see he simply spoke the truth._ Cid was observing Biggs and Wedge as they ran their final pre-flight checks. _You_ are _hope—a shining beacon that shall guide the people of Ishgard through the raging snowstorm._ Aymeric had his hands folded behind his back, Lucia and Estinien standing quietly on either side. Edmont, his two sons, and an array of family servants and guards were clustered close by.

She looked down at her forearms, at the pieces of Haurchefant's shield she had requested Cid fix onto her clothes. _A memento_ , Edmont had told her when he'd handed her the scarred shield painted with a red unicorn head on a black background, the crest of House Fortemps. _Were my son here, he would have wished to fight at your side in the battle to come. Take him there with you, my friend, and come back to us._ She had hugged the shield close to her chest, and knew immediately what she would do.

Everyone on the platform turned to look at her as she came down the hill. They spied the pieces of Haurchefant's broken shield fixed onto her jacket—the shoulder guards and vambraces—and nodded with silent approval. _I have better if it's armor you need—_ Cid had said when she asked him to craft it for her. _Want_ , she corrected him. _This is what I want._ When he started to protest, she said only his name, and he did as she asked.

The group of people was gathered before the _Enterprise_ but they were all staring at her. She looked again at the blue mast then at each of their faces. She had never given the grand pre-mission speeches. That was Minfillia, Alphinaud, Cid—anyone but her. But here they were looking at her, waiting, hoping, believing. It was the Scions the Alliance had looked to, but it was S'liya Lhea that Ishgard put their faith in.

She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply. What speech could she give? _I'll end this war once and for all!_ It had been said before, but the war wasn't over. _I'll defeat the Ascians and the Heavens' Ward!_ But that went without saying. Killing Ishgard's criminals, the ex-righteous, and stopping the Ascians was the mission. _I will save Ishgard from the secret powers of Azys Lla._ But once the door was open, Azys Lla would be a wealth too vast to prevent plunder. _I will…I will…_

S'liya opened her eyes. "I cannot make right thousands of years of wrongs, but I can destroy those who would impede Ishgard's progression to peace." Her fingers curled into tight fists. "I cannot bring back our fallen friends…but I can avenge them." She squeezed her fists, nails digging into the leather strips wrapped around her hands. She looked pointedly at Edmont. "And I will."

Edmont bowed his head. "Wheresoever you may go, my son's spirit goes with you. May the Fury grant you strength!"

But the Fury could give her nothing she did not already possess.

S'liya crossed to the airship and the crowd immediately parted for her. Y'shtola, Alphinaud, and Estinien boarded behind her. Cid was the last one on. As the _Enterprise_ swayed from the dock, Aymeric stepped forward.

"Return to us!" he said, voice rising above the whirring of the airship's engine. He then looked at S'liya. Her gray eyes met his icy blue ones. "Return to me."

The _Enterprise_ sped away, racing toward Azys Lla.


	4. Revenge

Thirteen empowered men against the Warrior of Light, thirteen bastardized versions of Ishgard's precious history's heroes against Hydaelyn's chosen one. _I cannot die,_ she had told Haurchefant and Aymeric, and those words flitted through her mind as she stood victorious.

The Archbishop clawed at the ground. "What…are you?" he gasped, wide eyes glaring up at her in fear. "What… _are you_?" He collapsed as his heart gave out, eyes rolling to the back of his skull. Scattered around him were eleven corpses of the Heavens' War knights. The twelfth writhed on the ground amid his fallen comrades. In the fierce and fast-paced battle, she had been sure to leave Ser Zephirin alive.

She stomped across the circular platform to where the knight lay broken. She hoisted him up by his gorget and he screamed in pain, reaching back to clutch at her hand. She felt his sweat-soaked hair tangled around her fingers amid the armor. She dragged him to the center of the platform, kicked the Archbishop away, and threw him into the vacated space.

"Get up," she hissed. He looked at her, fear and disbelief wrinkling his brow, pain twisting his bloodied mouth. "Fight me." She kicked the nearest sword in his direction. It skittered across the ground and tapped his boots. "Pick it up." He gaped at her like she was joking. "PICK IT UP!"

"You're…" he rasped, "crazy…"

S'liya hoisted a shield and threw it at him. He barely managed to lift his arm in time to protect his head. It crashed against him and he crumpled onto the ground, crying out in pain.

"You want to kill me? Then get up and kill me!"

Zephirin slowly pushed himself up and, for the first time, seemed to take in the carnage around him. His head turned, eyes sweeping from one side of the platform to the other. Sorrow, confusion, pain, anger—it contorted his features.

"You killed my friend." She leaned toward him, brow knit tightly together. "I've killed _all_ of yours." She nodded at him when he turned his glare on her. "Get. Up."

"You're…a monster…" he choked as he struggled to his feet, heaving the shield in one hand and the sword in the other.

A dagger flashed across the platform so quickly that he didn't have time to react. It slammed into his shoulder through the gap between his broken breastplate and pauldron. Zephirin staggered and coughed up a wad of dark blood. The sword clattered to the ground.

"Pick it up!" she screamed.

Zephirin fell to one knee and spat a glob of red through his teeth. His fingers clawed at the sword hilt, struggling to find purchase. Sliya watched, her whole body vibrating with anxious rage, as he slowly stood. All she could think of was this man smiling at her as she knelt over Haurchefant's dying body, of the life leaving her friend's eyes.

"I will…kill you…" Zephirin hissed.

"Then kill me!"

The bloody knight took heavy, clumsy steps toward her, straining to lift his sword. He cried out, finding one last surge of strength, and raised his weapon high. She waited until the last second to draw her dagger, batting away his swing easily. The weight of the sword ripped his arm to the right so he flung his shield at her. Her second dagger was in her hand in an instant, striking the shield upward with such force that his arm followed the motion, nearly flipping him onto his back. He shuffled backward several paces before he found his footing.

Her eyes never left his, not even when she parried his attacks. He snarled and tightened his grip on his weapon. He threw away the shield and took the sword into both hands. He roared as he charged, winding back for a powerful swing. She stood very still, waiting. As he closed in and the sword dared to claim her head, she spun, striking the weapon away from her with one blade while the other slammed into his chest, piercing his breastplate.

Zephirin dropped the sword and stumbled backwards, hands flying to the hilt sticking out of his armor. He choked on air, jaw bobbing wordlessly. As he looked up at her, she spun into a kick and her boot heel connected with the dagger's pommel. It slammed into his body, immediately severing his spinal cord. Zephirin's eyes bulged in the last second before he died. In one agonizingly long moment, he teetered on his feet and then fell backward across the body of the late Archbishop.

 _Killing is your only talent_. And now Haurchefant's killer was dead as well.


	5. Rise

S'liya Lhea knelt in the snow before the gravestone they had erected for Haurchefant at Providence Point. Her fingers gently crafted a shape in the snow as she thought of what to say to him. To this death marker. He hadn't died in Coerthas, was only memorialized there, yet she still felt compelled to visit him there, as though his spirit lingered in such a place.

Words failed her as her most cherished memories of him played endlessly in her mind. She formed a pyramid, squashed it, tried a square but got a misshapen sphere, smoothed it into a ball and remembered the snowball that had struck the back of her head the day she'd been sitting atop a Dragonhead battlement feeling sorry for herself.

"You smiled so light-heartedly," she mumbled as her cold fingers gingerly smoothed out the snow. She pretended he was sitting there with her, listening, smiling like he did that day. "How could I idle and pout after such a challenge? You knew how to pull me out of my own misery."

And she had been miserable coming to Camp Dragonhead in the wake of betrayal and loss, but the months she spent in hiding there were filled with happy memories. She recalled drinking hot coffee while looking at the stars shining in a clear, night sky as he told her tales only a child of Ishgard would know, and remembered fondly sculpting figures in the snow before abandoning their crafts for a snowball fight, whittling totems out of dead branches for the soldiers and staff, playing Triple Triad late into the night by a warm fire.

"You complained I always won." She smiled and drew a happy face in the snowball. "But every time, you were readying your cards for another match." She added angry eyebrows to the snowball when she thought of the determination on his face as he slapped a new card onto the table. "I never told you, but you were good. I struggled for every victory."

They had done more than just waste time with leisure. They engaged in practice bouts on the frosty battlements of ruinous keeps, tracked prey in snow as high as her knees, scouted Ixali movements through snowstorms, fought back-to-back against foes outnumbering them three-to-one—and in this they had learned each other's mind with the same intimacy soldiers shared after a lifetime of training together.

"You were the only one I ever trusted completely in a fight." She hollowed out the snowball until it formed a bowl. "To you, I was a hero. But to me, you were a true friend. You were…" Her fingers were numb as she withdrew a freshly carved shield totem from her jacket's inner pocket and delicately placed it in the snow bowl. "My first real friend…"

The pockets under her cheeks tightened with the threat of tears, dry eyes prickling with wet heat. She sniffled—from her core temperature dropping or from sorrow, she wasn't sure. Her whole body was shivering from the cold. Her hand lifted to touch the gravestone, palm flattening against its rough surface.

"I miss you, Grey." The red horn of the unicorn crest on her vambrace caught the light and reflected it. The snow crunched softly as someone approached. "I will carry your memory with me always."

"Then you should be smiling," Ser Aymeric said quietly. "A smile better suits a hero." She glanced back at him and was sure her face looked strange as she struggled to hold in her emotion. "And he liked your smile best."

The laughter burst out of her as broken sobs, a few tears ran hot lines down her freezing cheeks. She quickly swiped them away, sniffled, and exhaled a long, trembling breath. When she inhaled the cool, mountain air, she felt calmer.

S'liya bumped her fist against the gravestone like they had done many times in the past. She smiled as brightly as she could.

"See you again, my friend," she whispered. "Someday."

When she came to stand before Aymeric, he looped a wool scarf around her neck. It was incredibly warm. She hugged it against her cold cheeks, heated further under his tender gaze that reminded her that, though Haurchefant had been her first friend, he had not been her only friend.


End file.
